Weber's "Gesamtpersonlichkeit" and Pater's "Diaphaneite," PART TWO.
As J. Hillis Miller has shown, Pater's theory of recurrence is tied up with his theory of form. And, for Pater, "form is everything, matter nothing" (Miller, "Walter Pater: A Partial Portrait" in Bloom's Modern Critical Views, Walter Pater, p. 86).
Therefore, when considering a particular historical personage, we must take notice of that particular person's presentation in time as a congeries of elements. Miller likes to use Plato as an example:
As to how such recurrent configurations come about, Pater does not venture much in the way of explanation. In his early essay "Diaphaneite," he seems content to utter phrases such as "a happy gift of nature," and "coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature"--neither of which is particularly "diaphanous" as a description and hardly suffice as explanations (see Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance, OUP, p. 137)!
If we require explanations of such phenomena, we must look elsewhere than Pater. Finding a certain congeniality between Pater's thought and Max Weber's (as mediated by Kant), I have chosen to look there.
What I find in Weber is a similar sensitivity to "form," whereby the form of the individual personality is determined, in part, by "larger," i.e., "social" formations.
At this point I must confess a degree of skepticism about sociology in general. I can never quite escape the nagging suspicion that the analysis of social formations offers no better (or worse) an explanation of a given phenomenon than such phrases as "a happy gift of nature" and "coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature." What do we accomplish by offering a sociological explanation? Without a doubt, we have added a layer of complexity to our descriptions of phenomena--we have "thickened" them as Geertz would say--and that, at any rate, is something. But is that our ultimate objective? I think not. Our ultimate objective is to penetrate further into the mystery of how things happen and, if possible, to thereby gain some sort of leverage over the course of our lives. In other words, in the so-called human sciences, we have not advanced beyond the stage of magical manipulation of the universe. We are still "primitives" in our efforts and our desires. I often wonder if we would not be better off simply accepting the rudimentary nature of our grasp of things and, instead of striving to achieve something more "advantageous" (whatever that means), apply ourselves towards living more comfortably within our manifest limitations. With this caveat in mind, let us return to Weber's sociological explanation of personality types--leaving aside the question as to whether what Weber provides us is truly an example of explanatory power or just another adroit deferral of facing up to human impotence and mortality.
Weber shares Pater's interest in accounting for differences in human personality. He is convinced that the form of community in which one finds oneself has a determinate bearing upon the shape which that personality takes. In other words, community acts upon human personality in a manner analogous to the way a mold acts upon jell-o. Weber pays close attention to the various forms that communities take in particular historical contexts. He often compares and contrasts the attributes of distinguishable social formations. One pair of social formations that Weber distinguishes is "church" versus "sect." His motivation for making this distinction (which appears to introduce a sort of circularity to his arguments) is to account for the appearance and persistence of certain personality types. The particular Weberian type that is most relevant to the present inquiry is that of the Berufsmensch or "person of vocation" which I take to be a sub-type of the integrated modern personality that Weber favors: the Gesamtpersonlichkeit. If I am mistaken about Weber's taxonomy of types, I don't think it will be fatal to the comparison I wish to make with Pater and such a mistake (if there is one) could be corrected with a shift in nomenclature.
The distinction that Weber makes between church and sect is this: a "church" is the kind of community that "routinizes" charisma (and therefore manages to "homogenize"--sectarians would say "neutralize"--its individual manifestations among its members because all are deemed, by virtue of their membership in the community, to participate in charisma in some fashion); a "sect" (on the other hand) is the kind of community that cultivates the individual personalities of its members in such a way as to insure periodic "outbreaks" of charisma among them. It achieves this goal in a variety of ways. One is by limiting membership to those who have demonstrated charismatic authority prior to joining the organization. As a practical matter, this means that a sect cannot rely upon heredity to sustain or grow its membership in the way that a church can--for the obvious reason that charisma is not a predictable trait among families. For example, some of the Kennedys have had it, but most have not.
As Kim points out, Weber associates the "church" form of community with the Anstalt or institution and he associates the "sect" form of community with Gemeinschaft or organic community--a Romantic concept that would also inform Gramsci. On the basis of this distinction he compares and contrasts the Catholic church with Puritan sectarianism:
There is much here to mull over. If Weber is correct about the real-world effects of his church-sect distinction, he has provided us with a valuable analytical tool that can assist us in forming our expectations of certain types of social formations. And insofar as our expectations of social formations relate to our political hopes and agendas, he has contributed to those as well.
Pater's favored personality type, the Diaphaneite, is a charismatic mode with political potential but, as we shall see in PART THREE of this post, he was not particularly optimistic that this type could fulfill his utopian hopes.
Therefore, when considering a particular historical personage, we must take notice of that particular person's presentation in time as a congeries of elements. Miller likes to use Plato as an example:
"No element in Plato is new, not one speculative atom. What is new is the way of putting these elements together. In Pater's doctrine of recurrence, repetition is always with a difference. The difference lies in the way old forces are brought together once more in a slightly changed way and under new conditions. Pater's term for this novel way of assembling new materials is 'form.' Plato's originality lies in his brilliant novelty of form..." (ibid).
As to how such recurrent configurations come about, Pater does not venture much in the way of explanation. In his early essay "Diaphaneite," he seems content to utter phrases such as "a happy gift of nature," and "coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature"--neither of which is particularly "diaphanous" as a description and hardly suffice as explanations (see Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance, OUP, p. 137)!
If we require explanations of such phenomena, we must look elsewhere than Pater. Finding a certain congeniality between Pater's thought and Max Weber's (as mediated by Kant), I have chosen to look there.
What I find in Weber is a similar sensitivity to "form," whereby the form of the individual personality is determined, in part, by "larger," i.e., "social" formations.
At this point I must confess a degree of skepticism about sociology in general. I can never quite escape the nagging suspicion that the analysis of social formations offers no better (or worse) an explanation of a given phenomenon than such phrases as "a happy gift of nature" and "coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature." What do we accomplish by offering a sociological explanation? Without a doubt, we have added a layer of complexity to our descriptions of phenomena--we have "thickened" them as Geertz would say--and that, at any rate, is something. But is that our ultimate objective? I think not. Our ultimate objective is to penetrate further into the mystery of how things happen and, if possible, to thereby gain some sort of leverage over the course of our lives. In other words, in the so-called human sciences, we have not advanced beyond the stage of magical manipulation of the universe. We are still "primitives" in our efforts and our desires. I often wonder if we would not be better off simply accepting the rudimentary nature of our grasp of things and, instead of striving to achieve something more "advantageous" (whatever that means), apply ourselves towards living more comfortably within our manifest limitations. With this caveat in mind, let us return to Weber's sociological explanation of personality types--leaving aside the question as to whether what Weber provides us is truly an example of explanatory power or just another adroit deferral of facing up to human impotence and mortality.
Weber shares Pater's interest in accounting for differences in human personality. He is convinced that the form of community in which one finds oneself has a determinate bearing upon the shape which that personality takes. In other words, community acts upon human personality in a manner analogous to the way a mold acts upon jell-o. Weber pays close attention to the various forms that communities take in particular historical contexts. He often compares and contrasts the attributes of distinguishable social formations. One pair of social formations that Weber distinguishes is "church" versus "sect." His motivation for making this distinction (which appears to introduce a sort of circularity to his arguments) is to account for the appearance and persistence of certain personality types. The particular Weberian type that is most relevant to the present inquiry is that of the Berufsmensch or "person of vocation" which I take to be a sub-type of the integrated modern personality that Weber favors: the Gesamtpersonlichkeit. If I am mistaken about Weber's taxonomy of types, I don't think it will be fatal to the comparison I wish to make with Pater and such a mistake (if there is one) could be corrected with a shift in nomenclature.
The distinction that Weber makes between church and sect is this: a "church" is the kind of community that "routinizes" charisma (and therefore manages to "homogenize"--sectarians would say "neutralize"--its individual manifestations among its members because all are deemed, by virtue of their membership in the community, to participate in charisma in some fashion); a "sect" (on the other hand) is the kind of community that cultivates the individual personalities of its members in such a way as to insure periodic "outbreaks" of charisma among them. It achieves this goal in a variety of ways. One is by limiting membership to those who have demonstrated charismatic authority prior to joining the organization. As a practical matter, this means that a sect cannot rely upon heredity to sustain or grow its membership in the way that a church can--for the obvious reason that charisma is not a predictable trait among families. For example, some of the Kennedys have had it, but most have not.
As Kim points out, Weber associates the "church" form of community with the Anstalt or institution and he associates the "sect" form of community with Gemeinschaft or organic community--a Romantic concept that would also inform Gramsci. On the basis of this distinction he compares and contrasts the Catholic church with Puritan sectarianism:
"Weber alleges, for instance, that the Catholic Church is not particularly interested in the ethical qualities of its lay population, because it is vested with a power to redeem their sin periodically. Thus the church members include periodic sinners as well as religiously sincere personalities. This is why ... Weber calls it a 'salvation-dispensing foundation' ... an institution based on leveling universalism. By contrast, Puritan sects tend toward a religious elitism or spiritual aristocracy. For Puritans, as their name indicates, only the pure can be admitted to the Lord's Supper, and 'it is a sin not to purge the sacramental communion of nonbelievers.'As opposed to Anstalt or institution, a Puritan sect is not a universal organization that embraces everybody and anybody. It is in a sense an elite group of those who have passed the strict test of admission, usually decided by a ballot of members. Those belonging to sects are the new elites and aristocrats by virtue of proven quality, or in short, charisma: 'The possession of such faculties is a "charisma," which to be sure, might be awakened in some but not in all'" (Kim, Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society, p. 77).
There is much here to mull over. If Weber is correct about the real-world effects of his church-sect distinction, he has provided us with a valuable analytical tool that can assist us in forming our expectations of certain types of social formations. And insofar as our expectations of social formations relate to our political hopes and agendas, he has contributed to those as well.
Pater's favored personality type, the Diaphaneite, is a charismatic mode with political potential but, as we shall see in PART THREE of this post, he was not particularly optimistic that this type could fulfill his utopian hopes.
posted by Sidi Hamid Benengeli | 12:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home